A gear pump includes one or more sets of intermeshing gears disposed on separates shafts within a common housing. An external power source, such as an engine, drives one of the shafts to rotate the intermeshing gears. Low-pressure fluid is fed into a disengaging side of the gears, and the rotation of the gears traps the fluid between teeth of the gears and inner cylindrical walls of the housing. The fluid is transported around the inner cylindrical walls by the gear teeth to a high-pressure outlet of the pump, where the fluid is then forced out of the gear teeth by re-engagement of the gears. A pressure of the fluid at the outlet is a result of a rotational speed of the gears and a restriction placed on the fluid at locations downstream of the gears.
In some situations, the fluid pressure at the outlet of the pump can be high-enough to cause air bubbles trapped in the fluid to implode. This implosion (a.k.a., cavitation), if left unchecked, can cause fluid delivery instabilities, excessive noise, and premature failure of fluid system components.
One attempt to address cavitation within a gear pump is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,033,197 that issued to Brown et al. on May 7, 2000 (“the '197 patent”). In particular, the '197 patent discloses a gear pump housing having bleed slots located adjacent to an outlet passage of the pump. The bleed slots are arcuate, and decrease in size along their arc length. The bleed slots are machined into a body of the housing and function to bring fluid transported by gears of the pump gradually up to the pressure found at the outlet passage. This gradual increase in pressure reduces a size of air bubbles trapped in the fluid prior to implosion, such that when the bubbles do implode at the outlet passage, a magnitude of the implosion is smaller.
While the pump of the '197 patent may provide for gradual pressure increase and reduced cavitation, it may still be less than optimal. In particular, it may be difficult in some applications to find the space within the pump body to machine the bleed slots. In these applications, walls of the body may be weakened by the machining process and/or it may not even be possible to machine the slots. In addition, the geometry of the disclosed bleed slots may be difficult and/or costly to reproduce at other locations of the pump housing.
The disclosed pump and mounting adapter are directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.